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Too Big or Just Right?

By Eric Asimov January 11, 2008 5:52 pmJanuary 11, 2008 5:52 pm

(Image courtesy of englewoodwinemerchants.com)

Interesting article by Corie Brown in The Los Angeles Times this week on Adam Tolmach of the Ojai Vineyard. According to the article Tolmach has had a conversion experience and has decided to dial back the strength and ripeness of his pinot noirs, chardonnays and syrahs. The article quotes Tolmach as saying that while his wines received high scores from critics, they were not, after all, the style of wines he likes best.

The article paraphrases Tolmach as saying that the alcohol level of his wines was too high, at 15 percent and higher, and quotes him as saying, “I’d stopped drinking my own wines.’’

As a result, he said, he will redirect his efforts at making more balanced, subtle, lower-alcohol wines, around 14 percent.

More than a few California winemakers have spoken publicly about how California wines in general have gotten way too big and exaggerated. It’s a polarizing issue that generally ends in name-calling before long. Just last year Randy Dunn of Dunn Vineyards issued a cri de coeur contending that the profusion of high-alcohol wines were harming the California wine industry. I’ve written not only about the rising level of alcohol but also the rising perception of sweetness in California wines, especially pinot noirs. You can get a taste of the battle in looking at the responses to my blog post on the issue.

What makes this latest article so interesting is that Tolmach is the first winemaker I’m aware of to say publicly that he is changing his style of winemaking. It’s certainly not an easy thing to do from a commercial point of view, regardless of what one thinks privately.

But I was puzzled, too, because I’ve never thought of the Ojai wines as emblematic of the over-the-top California style. Interestingly, neither did Allen Meadows, a wine critic who, with his subscription-only burghound.com, is a leading authority on Burgundy and pinot noir wines.

The article cites Meadows’s criticism of the bigger-is-better wines as a sign that opposition is building to the sorts of wines that other critics, like Robert M. Parker Jr., have championed. Yet Meadows has been a supporter of the Ojai wines, giving a score of 92 to the 2005 Fe Ciega Vineyard pinot noir, in which he found, “ripe plum, violets and red berry fruits and precise, rich and intense medium-full flavors that possess both excellent complexity and fine finishing intensity plus the slightest hint of animale.’’

Parker himself, reviewing the same wine, gave it a 91, finding, “a wonderful combination of red and black fruits intermixed with crushed rock, wet stone, smoke, roasted herb, and earth characteristics. Beautifully pure and powerful as well as elegant, impressively pure, and nicely textured.’’

Meadows also gave the ‘03 and the ’02 Fe Ciegas 92 points. Parker rated the ’04 91 points and the ’03 93 points. Of the 12 Ojai wines that Meadows has reviewed from the 2002 through the 2005 vintages — 11 pinot noirs and 1 chardonnay — he said 11 were at 14 percent alcohol and one was at 14.5 percent.

I was curious about which of his wines he felt were over the top, so I called Tolmach in California. Turns out he’s not very happy with the article.

“She’s a wonderful person and smart,’’ he said of Ms. Brown, the reporter, “but I really feel as if I was mischaracterized.’’

Specifically, he takes issue with the suggestion in the article that he was making his wines, at least in part, to please critics. “Tolmach,’’ the article reads, “is pushing up his harvest dates to pick less-ripe grapes and rejecting bunches that might have made the grade in previous vintages to bring his wines back in balance – a balance he says he lost in the years spent trying to serve two masters: himself and wine critic Robert Parker.’’

“I vehemently disagree with the idea that I was making the wines for Parker,’’ he told me. When I asked him which of his own wines was too over-the-top he said he was referring to a series of pinot noirs he had made from the Pisoni Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands from 1992 to 2001.

“On tasting them later on, I said I just can’t drink these wines,’’ he told me, and suggested that Ms. Brown had extrapolated from his comments that he felt that way about all his wines.

Needless to say, Tolmach is not the first and won’t be the last subject of an uncomfortable story to contend he was mischaracterized. When I called Corie Brown she said only, “Adam hasn’t contacted me or the paper with any questions or comments.’’

Even if Tolmach disagrees with the way she characterized his winemaking and his wines, he still feels that the subject is of crucial importance to the future of the California wine industry. “I really do feel that the advantage of drinking European wines is that there’s a sense of balance in some of those wines that is a useful lesson for California winemakers, for me,’’ he said. “We have this big bold rich fruit that ripens fully, and how do you get that into wine with balance? I’m looking to take California grapes and make California wines that have some of the sense of European balance.’’

“I’m never happy with what I’m doing,’’ he said. “If you take winemaking as a craft you never have complete success. I just think there is room for better balance.’’

As I said, you cannot touch this subject before the accusations start flying. For his part, Parker, on a thread on the Mark Squires bulletin board at erobertparker.com, denies, as he has for years, that winemakers try to create wines that will please him. He labeled the notion “a dirty, rotten, filthy urban myth.’’

“A dirty, rotten, filthy urban myth’’, is it? Is he disingenuous or out of touch?

Everywhere you go in Italy (my beat), wine people acknowledge that this is what they are trying to do. They disparage “American” (“Parkerized”) taste but pander to it all they can. Why else would they hire Michel Rolland or his Italian imitators? Why else use barriques in areas that have traditionally have used large oak? For that nice toasty round taste and earlier drinkability. To earn that 90+ score. And, funnily enough, a Tre Bicchieri rating from Gambero Rosso.

I’m generalizing, of course. Plenty of wine makers don’t do any such thing. But a great many do and we all know it.

Their error is in assuming that it will always be thus. Restaurant people and some wine sales people here in New York have told me that the tastes are indeed a-changin’.

I find it hard to understand the focus on the alcohol level of finished wines, knowing fully well, that it is no longer an indication of the fruit’s ripeness at harvest. Winemakers, who use reverse osmosis or more commonly, spinning cone process, can make a high brix harvest into a (relatively) lower alcohol wine.

Critics of fully ripe California wines will have to persuade consumers that leaner, lower alcohol wines are better or winemakers will keep making wines in the present style. And that may be hard to do because we humans are hardwired to opt for ripe flavors in the fruits we buy, so it is not surprising we also favor those flavors in wine. Wine buyers’ taste is the determining factor and most buyers don’t know who Robt. Parker is, but they know what they like. If they wanted less ripeness, there are plenty of European wines available. It is the buyer in the free market that drives the style. Markets work!

Patrick, you can remove alcohol from wine but you still have to pay the tax and end up with a comparatively smaller volume of product with for better or worse altered aromaticity and all sort of things because now everythign is suspended in a different solvent since the ratio water:EtOH is changed. De-Acl isn’t just an easy on the whim fix. It’s fairly common but not at all prefeered. Plus no one adds alcohol for things sold as non-fortified wine, so yes to a certain degree you can tell is a fruit was way way (potentially over) ripe before vinification if the alcohol is above 14. If you want to get technical and sound in the know I’d talk saignee and Jesus units dude.

A few weeks ago a friend and I opened two older Bordeaux for dinner: a 1978 Mouton Rothschild and a 1988 Lynch-Bages. The Mouton, which we drank first, had 13.5 percent alcohol. The Lynch-Bages, 12.5 percent. Think about it–12.5 percent. (Both wines were great, though the Mouton was much softer around the edges and seemed fully mature; the Lynch-Bages still has plenty of life left.)

Anyone who has spent years inside the heart of the California wine industry will have, as I do, stories of “Parker summits” the corporate wine companies hold to figure out how to get Parker scores…can tell you how the winemakers who know how best to make “Parkerized” wines are courted and lured into consulting contracts to the richest bidders…how an entire mini-industry exists to achieve Parker scores, from viticultural consultants to high-tech equipment to a company called Enologix that was founded to help wineries create wines pleasing to Parker and Wine Spectator. For Parker to deny that wines are made to please his palate sounds, at this late date, very much like willful delusion or at worst disingenousness. Please.

You don’t have to go to Europe to find the lower alcohol wines. Just go back 20 – 30 years in California when most of the wines were 12 – 13 % alcohol. Think of the old Charles Krug and early Mondavi wines. Those wines were in no way unripe.
Part of the blame for the higher alcohol levels also falls on the new clones and new yeast strains, not just hangtime.

Of course, water addition and saignee are two more tools that a winemaker can use to address very ripe fruit (ergo potentially high alc). But the my point is, why it (high alcohol wines) still exists when it can be adjusted to more acceptable levels. I have yet to taste a “balanced” wine that hits 15% or more in alcohol.

Three things characterize “California” wine — over-ripe, over-extracted, and over-oaked. There are wonderful exceptions, of course, but that’s the rule.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that Parker et al. don’t skew what the oenologues produce. They pander to him, but with resentment. I’m sure if I were to collect a modest fee from every winemaker who would benefit, I could live in style if I were willing to help Robert Parker into an early “retirement”.

This is all nonsense: Leave it to the vinophiles to take the fun out of a good bottle of wine.

Yes, the European vintages are more subtle, but who is to say that bold Californian fruit is inherently bad for winemaking? It is my belief that the whole point of wine is the taste of earth, climate, and regional indigenous attitude that can bloom from anywhere in the world. If Americans like their wine strong, then so be it! And the same goes for the French, the Spanish, the South Americans, the Australians, and so on.

Really, to hear the author and the five subsequent posters speak, it just misses the point.

Furthermore, I can personally vouch for the fact that wine was never meant to be discussed in technical terms.

Wineries may choose to make “Parkerized” wines, but is that Mr. Parker’s fault? He is an individual, and he’s entitled to publish his opinions. The fault, if there is any, lies with those who feel his opinion should dictate how they make or buy wine.

As a wine retailer, as a buyer, seller and drinker of wine, I would be happy to tell you that Mr. Parker’s opinion is irrelevant, but that just isn’t so. His scores, for good or evil, sell wine. Again, is that his fault? What has he done (write an opinion about the quality of a wine)that isn’t done by Eric and his tasting panel every Wednesday (without the arrogance)?

I’m not trying to defend Parker’s taste, just his right to publish his opinions. People shouldn’t blame him for the things others do with those opinions.

Actually, Phatpat, it’s you who don’t get the point of the article and some of our comments. The article is from the wine maker’s POV, and wine to be made has to be considered in its technical aspects — the various techniques of making the stuff.

Local tastes do differ but in today’s global marketplace the specificity of those tastes gets muddled. Wine makers in South Africa and Chile, for example, have to care what the consumer will buy in the UK or the US.

And comment #7 reminds us that there are historical trends that illustrate those differences. I loved many California wines in the 1970s, when they were lower in alcohol, more balanced, more distinctive and varied than they are now. They were also more reasonably priced. I thought most Italian wine was plonk back then; it was. Now it’s evolving very rapidly in zones that used to be full of rotgut. These changes have everything to do with “technical discussions.”

When information doesn’t come directly from the source you, rather unfortunately, need to be skeptical, and this story just underlines how you’ve really got to take all these wine features with a grain of salt.

Anyone who doesn’t think there is a serious drinker swing against high alcohol wines only needs to talk to sommeliers in top restuarants. As one of the posts said, we lower alcohol wine drinkers may only be the tip of the iceberg, but restaurant buyers are definitely moving that way. I live in Hong Kong and get to the States 5-6 times a year. Selecting lower alcohol wines from top restuarant lists is getting easier and asking the sommelier for recommendations always produces a “we know exactly what you mean”. It’s a ground swell and eventually wine reviewers will move with the trend – and wine makers will adapt. There is no doubt wine makers have made wines to the Parker style. Even a tiny vineyard in the Gippsland area of Australia showed me his micro-oxygenation equipment – and he was in no doubt about the style he was seeking. But why complain – fine wines with fine food and those blockbusters with a good steak. We have a lot to thank Robert Parker for – and lets face it, who doesn’t know his palate biases.

I recently tasted my first California wines, at the Tablas Creek winery (a more old-world style), and I was annoyed that their top red cuvees were very sweet, though in general their wines were more restrained than the Aussie shirazs I started out on. Two days ago I went to my first tasting of Bordeaux, including a 98 Kirwan. Even though I tend to like extremes, sugar and alcohol seem to have a cumulative effect, and I hugely appreciated the Bordeaux’s restraint. I will be wary of CA wines in the future.

BUT winemakers do know who he is. And really, critics do paint the way of what they view as acceptable standards. Each winemaker has their own philosophy, and you can bet good press is an attractive and tempting offer. So it would be an impossibility for Robert Parker’s tastes and preferences to be totally discounted from their decision in the lab. It’s utter foolishness to deny that reality.

But I can also testify that no wine I have ever sold was because of a Robert Parker score.

You know what, I can NOT even remember the last time I bought a California wine. The actual wine is just OKAY (yea it’s big and a little over the top), and for the price, it makes it a total waste of my time. So really, go ahead and keep inflating those prices with those over the top Pinots…

This is a brilliant post. I commend him for wanting to change his already successful wines. I think it is important to maintain old world methods and flavors. I think we, Americans, tend to get a head of ourselves, with out looking back. It’s like we are at the point, in wine making, where we are finally old enough to listening to and learn from the stories and sayings of our grandparents, yes?

Not try to please Parker? I visited a top estate in St.-Emilion (always high ratings) in early December 1999. The owner apologized for the bustle and frenetic activity. “We are getting ready for Mr. Parker’s visit,” he said. “We want everything to be ready for him.”
And Phatpat, you’re right that wine should express “the taste of earth, climate, and regional indigenous attitude.” The problem is that super-ripe fruit and high alcohol overpower those desirable characteristics and create wines that all taste alike.

That Damascene-like awakening is a shock especially because it was triggered by his own wine. California winemakers have made it tough on themselves by being partial to cool climate European grapes like Bordeaux varietals, Burgundy varietals, and northern Rhone varietals, and trying to make European-like wines out of them in a hot climate region. As we’ve seen so far, most vineyards in California do not support this effort. There’s only so many sites like Martha’s Vineyard, and probably just as few California winemakers like Joe Heitz who knew what to do with it.

I consider myself part of the backlash against high alcohol fruit bomb wines. Recently my preference has turned away from big Zins and Syrahs and more towards lower alcohol Bordeaux and Burgundy. And I attribute this in part to my getting older and my wish to enjoy meals and social events without the muzziness that high alcohol wines bring on.

A big Zin at a summer bbq is great, but with a decent sit down meal I’ll take a more complex wine that allows me a different type of enjoyment. If I drink wine, I want wine, not port.